


Birds

by TeddyTheCardioGoddess



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-09
Updated: 2020-06-09
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:34:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24624814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeddyTheCardioGoddess/pseuds/TeddyTheCardioGoddess
Summary: Once, there was a woman that Teddy Altman loved, and was taken away from her. There was a man that she loved and lost too, but not before she had a chance to share her most secret story with him. Tenry/ Teddison. Teddy loved Henry so I decided to remember him, even though canon certainly won't.
Relationships: Teddy Altman/Allison Browne, Teddy Altman/Henry Burton
Comments: 6
Kudos: 12





	Birds

**Author's Note:**

> Set right after Put Me In, Coach (season 8 episode 7). Hope you enjoy!

It is funny how liquor can give you courage. 

Teddy knows she is not suddenly braver than she had been just a few hours ago, but she had had a few too many sips from the flask Grey brought to the field, and the substance (tequila, if she can guess, knowing the resident’s drink of choice) has worked like a magical drug. 

She is not drunk, just a little light-headed, and she is smiling into the kiss as Henry’s fingertips strike her lower back gently beneath her blue baseball jersey shirt. 

She has been meaning to tell him for a while now, meaning to poke around the one wound that never really healed properly, and as a doctor, she thinks never will. She never found the right time until today, the words almost rolling off of her tongue but then stopping just by her lips. Yet something about this night, this moment, feels somewhat final, and she is afraid that if she won’t speak tonight he will never know her story. 

So she takes a deep breath and all the boldness she can master before breaking the kiss and whispering “Henry”.

He hums in response to hearing his own name, his eyes still close and his forehead leaning against hers, and she can feel him trying to catch his breath. 

“There is something I need to tell you.” She opens her eyes as she feels the hand on her back stills and his warm body drifting just slightly away. 

Teddy can see every thought that courses through her husband’s mind in his deep green eyes. He is afraid that their happy little marriage bubble has finally popped, and that something horrible is on its way, something that might break them.

“Is everything OK?” He asks, trying to hide the little tremor in his voice, in a manner of a man who is used to getting more bad news than good ones. 

“Every single thing is perfect.” Teddy reassures him, as she wraps her arms around his neck and her fingers slide into the hair on the back of his head. “There is something I need to share with you, and I am afraid that if I won’t say it now, I might keep it inside of me for the rest of my life.”

Henry nods, before interlacing their fingers and sitting on the couch behind him. 

“Not here” She whispers, pulling him up from the sofa. “Bedroom,” she orders “and take these off of us, slowly, please.” For some unknown reason, the idea of being naked as she unravels her truth makes her feel slightly more comfortable, like if they are both physically vulnerable , it will make her feel just a bit safer as she tells him the story she had never told to a living soul before. 

The surgeon closes her eyes as her husband does exactly as she asked him to. He guides her to their bedroom, where he slowly puts her down on the bed, as if she was some kind of a delicate princess. Their shoes and coats were already long gone, abandoned somewhere near the door of their brand new apartment, yet he takes his sweet time getting her undressed, and if she hadn't been the one asking him to do exactly so, she would have called it agonizing. 

First goes their shirts, then their pants and underwear, until they are both left lying in that bed, naked as the day they were born, nothing but their own skins between them, two souls wandering, clinging, desperate to be one. 

He lies half on top of her, his head rested on her naked abdomen, and with every breath she takes she feels the weight of him grounding her, reassuring her that she is safe and loved in a world that has been so lonely and cruel to her for so many years. 

Her hands start to wander down Henry’s body, and it is easier for her than to start speaking, for she knows that in the moment she will reopen that old scar, her blood will start shedding out of it. 

“Teddy” there’s somewhat a warning to his voice. “If you want to talk before we do anything else, you need to keep those hands to yourself, otherwise we will do a lot of things that don’t involve much talking.” She smiles, as if she was a kid getting scolded for stealing a candy from the grocery store. 

She feels his weight lifting off of her, then she hears him say “Come here” as he leans against the headboard.

Now her head is resetting on his chest, as he coaxes her “ Please, tell me what is troubling that genius mind of yours. Whatever it is, I promise you I can handle it.” 

She feels his hands on her lower back again, painting an unknown pattern, and she frowns as she inquires “How is that a fair game? I wasn’t allowed to touch you but you get to have your way with me?” 

“Because I want to make sure that you know I am here, holding you, no matter what.” 

They lie there, in their little silent bubble, for what feels like a small forever, before she finds it in herself to talk about the best and the worst time of her life. 

“Birds.” Teddy says softly, and a small smile is spreading across her face as the first tear rolls down her cheek. “That was the first thing I noticed when I first met Allison Robin Brown. I was looking down at a map as I was crossing the bicycle lane, and she was riding her bike, it was a too hot for the season fall day in 1998. I don’t even remember why I needed the map, I am a New York born and raised.” 

The tears are rolling down her face now, full steam ahead, and there is no trace left of that smile that appeared just a minute ago. She knows he can feel her tears on his body, so she props herself up on her elbows, looking deep into those loving green eyes, and she prays silently that he will continue to look at her the same way after she is done with her story. That he will still see her the same way he always did, ever since the moment they met in the surgical wing elevator. 

“I looked up and said ‘get those birds out of my way, Pollyanna’ and then I noticed the army boots she was wearing and her floral dress. A frown that turned into a smile as our glances met, a set of big brown eyes and a head full of curly, messy hair. And I have never felt that way before when I looked at someone for the first time. It was like I was punched straight in the stomach, like someone physically robbed the air out of my lounges.” 

“This was the moment I fell in love with her, yet it took me so long to admit that to myself. And there hasn’t been a day since that I haven't thought, what would have happened if I had let myself love her, fully, unapologetically, just a day earlier.” 

She goes silent then, and when she looks at him, she figures she had done it once more. This gorgeous man, lying naked in her bed, had fallen in love with her the moment he laid eyes on her, and it took her so long to admit to herself, and to him, that she had fallen for him too.

Yet he says nothing, gives her the so needed breathing room, because they both know tonight is not about their relationship, but about a relationship left buried in the ashes of a national tragedy. “I fell in love with her the moment I saw her. And when she asked me to move in with her and her girlfriend, Clair, just a few days later, I couldn’t bring myself to say no, even though there was a little green monster raising its ugly head inside of me every time I saw them acting like a couple.”

“So I pushed that emotion down, and I convinced myself that we were just best friends, and that I thought Clair was just not good enough for her. That was obviously the furthest thing away from the truth. Clair was a surgeon, just like me, and she was kind and funny. Practically the perfect girlfriend.”

She goes silent again, just for a minute. It's not like she has to recall those events, she remembers them as vividly as if they had happened just yesterday, and probably will remember them long after she forgets her own name. 

She has met her fair share of people who lost their loved ones. She lost her own two parents, and she knows that memories of people you loved and lost fade. The sound of their voice, their smell, the color of their eyes. Time heals and earases. But not when it comes to Allison, never when it comes to Allison. Her regrets will never let her forget, even though forgetness might have numbed the pain pressing down on her chest, every minute of every hour of every day of every year since she had been taken away from her. 

Henry gives her an encouraging nod, and she continues. “Until one night I just couldn’t lie to myself anymore. I was jealous. And not just jealous of them having the perfect relationship while I was single. I was jealous of Clair going to sleep every night and waking up every morning in the bed of the woman I love. Clair was pulling an all nighter at the hospital that night, and I had to down two glasses of wine before gathering the courage to talk to my best friend, if you can believe that.”

Teddy smiles, then she feels the salty taste of her own tears in her mouth.

“I was the one going to sleep in Allison’s arms that night, and when we were lying there in her bed after we had sex for the first time… The only equivalent I can think about to that feeling would be using heroine, or something of that sort. So for a long time after, I lied to myself it was just the rush of sneaking behind everyone’s backs, the rush of exploring my sexuallity, the rush I felt when she did all those things to my body I didn’t even know were possible. I was so good at self manipulating at that time that I almost had myself fooled. I never managed to get Allison to believe me though, and she had never pushed. She would whisper into my ear that she loved me, but I couldn’t admit just how much I loved her back, not out loud and not even to myself.”

“Because you see, Henry, my love for you is like a ship finally finding a harbor. You are my safe haven. You make me so happy, and you make me feel secure and content. And I love you, with all of my heart and all of my soul. But when I finally let everything that kept me chained go, and let myself really fall in love with Allison, I finally understood why they call it falling in love. I felt, and still feel my love for her with my whole body. I feel my love for her in every one of my 206 bones. It physically hurts, even as she was still alive.

“Loving Allison Robbin Brown was a constant rush of adrenaline in my veins. I loved her to such an extreme, that I felt as if I was facing death everyday, and everyday I was winning. It felt like a stream of electricity rushing through my veins every time I was around her. I have never loved anyone, man or a woman, to such extent, never before, and never ever since. We had this pillowtalk, on September 10th 2001, and we promised ourselves that we would tell Clair the next day, and that we will start a life of our own, together. And on September 11th, 2001, I went to the hospital, and she went to work at the south tower. And it was a perfectly normal day, until it wasn’t anymore. What’s funny, you know, is that I didn’t even have a chance to say goodbye. I had to get into the hospital early in that morning, and I didn’t want to wake her up and rob whatever was left of her sleeping hours.”

She notices her husband cries with her right now, big fat tears rolling down his eyes, and she loves him for that. She loves him for feeling everything so deeply, exactly as she does. 

“I’m sorry.” He says, rubbing the tears away from his face with the back of his hands. 

“Don’t be.” She pushes herself up his body, and places a soft kiss on Henry’s lips. “I want you to promise me you will never be sorry for whatever it is you are feeling.” She raises a brow, and waits for him to say the words she wants to hear.

“I promise.” He says, and she notices he still cries as she slides down the bed back to her place. 

“So when the city heard that loud and awful noise of the metal and concrete monster finally giving in at 9:59 AM on that Tuesday, I felt my heart giving in with it. I felt numb, but at the very same time I felt everything. Sad and confused, and so angry I saw the world in a fire-like shade of red. And when I realised I will never see her again, I was ready to go and be with her. I was ready to take my own life, and some of me is still there. I left a part of myself in that crappy New York City apartment, standing in front of the sink, sleeping pills that I stole from the hospital in my hand, ready to join the love of my life. I never took a single pill.”

“Suddenly, I had this crazy idea. I had to stay alive and avenge Allison’s death in the best way I could think of.I went and enlisted, and I was on my way to training the next day. I didn’t even stick around to attend her funeral. I never looked back, and I promised myself that I would never step foot in the city that was supposed to be my home, but failed me so badly and took the person I loved the most, the city that robbed me from everything I had.”

Teddy climbs up the bed again, and presses her lips to Henry’s. “I carried the weight of this story alone for ten years, and on some days, it felt like I was carrying the weight of the whole entire world on my shoulders. Until today. Thank you for listening, and loving me for who I am.”

She kisses him again, a bit more fire this time. He places a hand on her shoulder to push her back, just a little bit, just enough to allow him to talk. “You made me promise I would stop apologizing, so I just say thank you. Thank you for trusting me enough to share this story. Thank you for loving me. Thank you for letting me love you.” 

“Henry” she sobs. “Can you please make me feel something else other than the paralyzing pain in my chest?” 

He nods, and then wraps her in his arms. 

They both cry as they make love that night, and if a different name slips out of her lips as she comes, the name of a woman she loves, forever frozen in time, well, he doesn’t say a thing about it, and neither does she.

**Author's Note:**

> I was really upset when the show made it seem like the only man Teddy ever really loved was Owen. I loved Teddy and Henry's relationship so much, and I truly believe that she loved him enough to tell him the truth about her relationship with Allison. Thank you for reading and I would really appreciate your thoughts!


End file.
